#monseigneur myriel

[wilwywaylan]

Aaaaand there they are, all of them ! Can you believe it took me more than one year to do all that, starting with the sketches !

I love them all ! but I think my favourite is probably the Jehan one.

ID texts in the alt description.

[mali-umkin]

Mgr Miollis, who inspired the character of Mgr Myriel in Les Misérables, could soon be beatified. If only the Church took upon herself to actually study Mgr Myriel's conversation with the Conventionnel G.!

The real man went into exile during the Revolution, as he refused to take the oath on the Constitution. If he did not receive the blessing of a former Conventionnel, he very possibly did allow a convict, Paul Maurin, to take shelter in his home.

[maglorslostsilmaril]

sister simplice 🤝 bishop myriel

straight-up lying to cops for no other reason than vibes

[overwhelmedandlonely]

reading the brick fully for the first time and the priest is so funny? like genuinely making me chuckle. i love him

[alphazed]

I've been drawing more les mis at artschool, because of the project that might or might not get finished

So have these sketches! I chose colors on what felt right, Valjean and others coming later probably

Excuse the shitty ass quality lmao

[dolphin1812]

The Bishop in the Presence of an Unknown Light is here!!

I’m going to be honest: this is one of my favorite chapters in the whole book, partly because it contains one of my favorite quotes:

“‘I will weep with you over the children of kings, provided that you will weep with me over the children of the people.’”

It is a tragedy that the king’s son died, because he was a child and didn’t cause any of the problems that led to the French Revolution. But it is also a tragedy that countless children died of poverty, violence, or other factors relating to the monarchy and its policies and are not given the same status because their deaths were not as publicized (or were not recorded in as much detail). I’m not super familiar with the historiography of the French Revolution, so I’m not going to go into the biases/perspectives that may affect how it’s narrated today, but in historical narratives/writing, it’s often easier to sympathize with (or at least understand) those in power because they leave the most records behind. Of course, historians often work against this and try to read sources creatively, or seek out alternative sources; there’s plenty of works that try to describe the lives of the French peasantry, for instance. But in this situation, where the death of a child outside of the nobility would at most be recorded in a death register or in a personal diary within the family, it’s impossible to compare that to a death that was publicized across Europe.

Aside from that line, I love how we get to see the bishop’s discomfort in this chapter. He loathes this man for being a revolutionary (which makes sense, given his background) and has to sit in the tension between hating him and sharing his desire to help the people. I like how he’s deeply moved by this encounter, but in an unspecified way. I think that it would actually be unsatisfying if the bishop were completely convinced by this man’s arguments, given his history, but this conversation being a cause for reflection? Connecting to someone over God after thinking there was nothing they could share? Thinking about this moment and changing his actions afterwards, but not really speaking of it? That’s a really powerful way of showing its impact on the bishop while letting him not be perfect, but working towards becoming a better person.

I also like that the chapter ends with a note of humor:

“One day a dowager of the impertinent variety who thinks herself spiritual, addressed this sally to him, “Monseigneur, people are inquiring when Your Greatness will receive the red cap!”—“Oh! oh! that’s a coarse color,” replied the Bishop. “It is lucky that those who despise it in a cap revere it in a hat.””

The bishop really is funny.

[foolbo]

although im reading the book at my own pace and not following along with the les mis letters its still very fun to see everyone real hyped over bishop myriel

[eclecticelectriceccentric]

I adore a man who can invent parables by quoting the examples of a neighboring district.

[cliozaur]

Today’s chapter, especially the part where M. Myriel exchanges his episcopal palace for the hospital, brought to mind something I saw at the Museum of Medical History in Rouen. (In fact, the museum is called Musée Flaubert et Histoire de la Médecine—it might sound odd, but it's incredibly informative and worthwhile. If you're ever in Rouen, don’t miss it.) They reconstructed a nineteenth-century infirmary, complete with a huge bed meant for 6 to 8 people (see the photo below). It’s hard to imagine how they could fit there! Such places were terribly overcrowded, making the episcopal palace a more fitting location for a hospital.

One thing that bothered me while reading (which @shsenhaji also touched on today) is that although M. Myriel’s decisions about his expenses are incredibly kind and generous, and probably beneficial for the souls of everyone in his household, it’s not ideal to do it at the expense of his sister and Mme Magloire. The latter was elated about the 3000 francs: “Good. Monseigneur began with other people, but he has had to wind up with himself, after all. He has regulated all his charities. Now here are three thousand francs for us! At last!” Since he isn't the one handling the household finances, it might be difficult for him to grasp the challenges of running even a small house with almost no money.

[lesmisscraper]

A Just Man, the Bishop of Digne, Monseigneur Myriel. Volume 1, Book 1, Chapter 1.

Clip from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

[secretmellowblog]

One aspect of Les Mis that gets lost in adaptations is how critical Hugo is of the Church, and the way Christianity can be used as a tool of oppression. Myriel is not supposed to represent a normal bishop-- he's a bizarre outlier. He's a rebel. No one else in the Church likes him because he's the only one who calls out their hypocrisy. And it's not a coincidence that the Thing that made Myriel go from being a shallow careless aristocratic cad to a gentle compassionate priest was....the French Revolution.

It's fascinating how much Myriel actually ends up agreeing with the atheist rebel Conventionary's attitudes towards the Church--- but it makes complete sense when you look at the way he's been interacting with religion for the past few decades of his life!

In 1.1.12 we're told that Myriel is flat-out shunned by all other bishops and priests, largely because he has no interest in using the Church to gain power and wealth.

He “did not take” in Paris. Not a single future dreamed of engrafting itself on this solitary old man. Not a single sprouting ambition committed the folly of putting forth its foliage in his shadow. (...)The impossibility of growing great under Monseigneur Bienvenu was so well understood, that no sooner had the young men whom he ordained left the seminary than they got themselves recommended to the archbishops of Aix or of Auch, and went off in a great hurry. For, in short, we repeat it, men wish to be pushed. A saint who dwells in a paroxysm of abnegation is a dangerous neighbor; he might communicate to you, by contagion, an incurable poverty, an anchylosis of the joints, which are useful in advancement, and in short, more renunciation than you desire; and this infectious virtue is avoided. Hence the isolation of Monseigneur Bienvenu. We live in the midst of a gloomy society. Success; that is the lesson which falls drop by drop from the slope of corruption.

When he interacts with other bishops, it's with snarky frustrated comments about they waste all their money on luxuries while people are starving:

The fact is that he displeased them. Among other strange things, it is said that he chanced to remark one evening, when he found himself at the house of one of his most notable colleagues: “What beautiful clocks! What beautiful carpets! What beautiful liveries! They must be a great trouble. I would not have all those superfluities, crying incessantly in my ears: ‘There are people who are hungry! There are people who are cold! There are poor people! There are poor people!’”

He describes himself this way: I embarrassed them. The outside air penetrated to them through me. I produced on them the effect of an open door.”

Myriel is not normal! All of his acts of kindness and generosity, and the way he's so willing to shield outcasts and criminals, are explicitly framed as a kind of rebellion against the church. And, more importantly, it's all completely voluntary. He doesn't have to do any of it. His voluntary poverty is, emotionally, completely different from the actual real poverty of the people around him-- he never has to lose more than he can bear. If he doesn't want to give up everything, he can still choose to keep his fancy aristocratic silverware. I think that's part of why he doesn't protest against the Conventionary when he assumes that Myriel is ridiculously wealthy and lives in a palace full of luxuries. Even if the Conventionary was wrong about Myriel specifically....he's voicing the exact same criticisms Myriel has made of the church. He's saying all the things that Myriel has said to his own colleagues, the things that have made him an outcast. The Conventionary's:

You are a bishop; that is to say, a prince of the church, one of those gilded men with heraldic bearings and revenues, who have vast prebends,—the bishopric of D—— fifteen thousand francs settled income, ten thousand in perquisites; total, twenty-five thousand francs,—who have kitchens, who have liveries, who make good cheer, who eat moor-hens on Friday, who strut about, a lackey before, a lackey behind, in a gala coach, and who have palaces, and who roll in their carriages in the name of Jesus Christ who went barefoot!

is very similar to Myriel's:

“What beautiful clocks! What beautiful carpets! What beautiful liveries! They must be a great trouble. I would not have all those superfluities, crying incessantly in my ears: ‘There are people who are hungry!'

(And the Conventionary's comment about Jesus Christ preaching barefoot is very similar to the Bishop's earlier comments about how he is fine with travelling on the back of a donkey because it was good enough for Jesus Christ.) It's like, the Bishop thought the rebel atheist Conventionary was his enemy-- but after talking to him he discovers that he agrees with him far more, and on a far deeper level, than he agrees with any of his peers in the church.

And that's what he's getting at in the last lines of the chapter:

“Monseigneur, people are inquiring when Your Greatness will receive the red cap!”—“Oh! oh! that’s a coarse color,” replied the Bishop. “It is lucky that those who despise it in a cap revere it in a hat.”

People who despise the red hats of rebels revere the red hats of cardinals. But at this point Myriel seems to respect this outcast atheist rebel more than he respects any of the high church officials we've seen him interact with; he snarks at his bishop peers until none of them like him anymore, but he begs the conventionary for his blessing.

[wilwywaylan]

And with those three, the series is officially DONE !!!!! Can't believe I'm finally over. I've been working on them for more than a year, everything together, and wow, now I'm done !

This may be my first time drawing Myriel (except for one time where he was barely seen) !

Valjean and Javert have five cats and they all have stars / constellations names, because they can. Also this is Javert's favourite bedspread.

IDs in the alt text !

[vapaus-ystavyys-tasaarvo]

I don't know if anyone has pointed this out yet in the Les Mis Letters tag, but I figured I'd mention it just in case: the Bishop Myriel is based on a real historical person:

Both were bishops of Digne beginning in 1806, both known as "Monseigneur Bienvenu", both famous for their charity and humility.

There are differences as well of course, but the source of inspiration is clear.

Miollis also didn't live in the episcopal palace although the part about switching with a hospital isn't accurate. According to this source I found linked on the official page of the Diocese of Digne (on a website that looks like it's from the very early 00's at best), if I understood correctly, the palace wasn't available as it had been taken over by the district during the Revolution and was being used for various administrative offices.

This is a PDF link, just to warn you:

A son arrivée à Digne, l'immeuble n'étant pas en état, il acquit une maison bourgeoise, rue de l'Hubac (la maison est bien à son nom au cadastre de Digne), où il vécut modestement et très charitablement.

He acquired a bourgeois house on the rue de l'Hubac, where he lived modestly. I'm not entirely sure what the palace being "pas en état" means in this context tbh, I'm sorry.

The house where Miollis lived

Picture by Szeder László

Close up of the plaque

Picture by Renaud Camus

This house was not next to the episcopal palace (circled in red on the right) but closer to the Cathedral St. Jérôme in the old city centre, see the red arrow:

(Map from 1921 which is over a century later and thus isn't quite accurate for our era, but it was the oldest map I could find that shows the buildings clearly and readably; modern maps lack the palace which has since been demolished)

The house is sort of behind a few retaining walls (?) and downhill from the cathedral, there is a rather steep hill to climb, but it's a very short walk otherwise (the Cathedral is built right on top of the hill, it's hard to see from the map but all the houses and streets around the cathedral are built on a very steep slope in all directions, each "ring" of houses lower than the last one as you get further from the cathedral.)

[breadvidence]

Okay finally getting around to the prompting:

I think about Valjean/Myriel a lot, but I can’t quite get it to work, and I also get overwhelmed thinking about the amount of work it would take to somehow wrangle that into a healthy (even just for LM/canon era standards) power dynamic, and also the religious aspects, and—

Maybe if you go to the other extreme and write <1000k in isolation, you can get around that? (… and maybe I should also give myself permission to do that, tbh)

(I wouldn’t judge if someone did write the pairing with a fucked up dynamic, but I don’t personally want to read that with this pairing.)

As with anything else I prompt: brick or whatever adaptation is fine, canon or modern era is fine, I trust your Skills! Only request is Not Excessively Sad

((You troublemaker! This was never gonna be only 1k. I came—closer than far?))

Late in the year 1817, a letter was delivered to the house of the Bishop of Digne in the evening, which his sister read to him, his eyes having already begun their decline, such that not two days prior while trying to decipher a note under uncertain candlelight he was heard to comment to the housekeeper, madam, it is even bets whether it’s games [jeux] on the page and eyes [yeux] in my head or the opposite. 

The letter originated with a woman who made her home in Étaples—his connection with whom might have caused them some embarrassment in their youth, but which had become in the passage of fifty years quite tender—and detailed the conduct of a local businessman, charitable, of great faithfulness, with a certain skittishness about women, which limited his use to her, and to her pet causes, which proved most unfortunate, the businessman's pockets being very deep, to have sewn up their mouths against her elegant little fingers. Her attempts to leverage her local men to confer with the fellow had proved fruitless. Would sweet Myriel perhaps exert himself, as being both impressively holy for the good man’s sake and coltishly free with women on her behalf, in extending the influence of the crook?

He wrote to Madeleine, and received back in short order a letter of which his sister commented, This fellow has a palsy, I think. Look how the trembling of his hand shows in his writing. For all its brevity, it struck him with a humbleness sweet and unaffected, a sincerity of thanks, and he dictated to his sister a response which redoubled the respect shown to him, though the letter ended with Madeleine urging Monseigneur, you need not concern yourself with the pleasantries you opened your letter with, which are meant for someone much different than this simple man, who is pleased simply to be called ‘monsieur’, and given direct instruction, as a good farmer might direct his day-laborer in the field, who needs wisdom to know where the soil should be amended, or tilled, or left to rest, or planted with cover, or browsed over by the livestock. 

The next day, with a very bright sun and clear skies to aid him, Myriel looked over the letter in the garden, and saw what Baptistine politely declined to describe: that, in addition to the wavering of his pen, this Madeleine wrote with the large and uneven hand of a man come to literacy late in life, with an uncertain orthography to match. He recognized by some of those peculiarities that the author spoke with a Brie accent, of the rural type. Two years near after that moment of contemplation, he asked Baptistine to find the first letter from Madeleine in his effects, and had it folded, and put into a kind of medallion, which he wore about his neck. She did not question this; she did not question her brother much; and in any case, she had read two years of many letters aloud, and taken in dictation her brother’s half of the correspondence.

She asked, once, Would you not caution M. Madeleine against committing such passion to the page?, in a tone of mercy, as the untouched address those afflicted by a great and hideous illness. 

In the matter of schools for little children I think him quite incorrigible, he replied, for he wishes he had his own children, and must find some outlet. Tell him, will you, that I sign this letter with a kiss—and bring it to me, that I might not make a liar of myself. 

Madame Magloire, much laid up in those days with gout, said from her warm corner by the fire, She means the talk of embracing in dreams, monseigneur, with the strong loins pressing close and such.

He cannot help, said Myriel, having dreams, or loins.

One matter created obscurity in the correspondence, and for Myriel, doubt: Madeleine could not be found in Montreuil-sur-Mer at those times when the Bishop of Digne might have taken leave of his duties to visit. These unhappy coincidences, the urgent nature of what called him away in each instance, did not convince—but the anguish expressed over the unavoidable separation did so. This obscurity became illuminated, and the shadowy worm within it therefore prompted into pupation as when Spring reminds what crawls of its potential for wings, in the year 1821, when Myriel dictated, The doctor here says I would be quite better served at lower elevation, where it is less cold in winters. 

Come, then, Madeleine returned. Baptistine apostrophized on this, He is very bold in tone, but—poor, darling man—his hand shakes worse now than it did even at the start. 

On his arrival in Montreuil-sur-Mer, helped down from the diligence, Myriel understood at once: he had met Madeleine before, under circumstances that Madeleine did not wish known, for he had set aside his old cassock for a modest gentleman’s outfit, and had never described his countenance, but quicker than Baptistine could have made a sign, there came a glad cry of greeting, stifled too late, and when he opened his arms, a close embrace. His hands, which sometimes grew troubled with heat and soreness, were kind to him that day: he clutched at strong shoulders, unashamed of what another man might call weakness of the knees, and he knew to be the dizzy transportation of love. Where before did this strong body present itself to him? He cared not, in the moment, though his agile mind would seize upon the mystery again.

They toured the town, Myriel’s hand in the crook of Madeleine’s elbow to guide him, and his voice to keep him here, a puddle—here, a child, oh, let me give him a coin, a moment, monsieur—and in the space between their bodies a heat that decades’ clerical chastity on the one hand and a lifetime of abnegation on the other could not suffice to snuff. Madeleine’s voice, low and sweet, grew rough in its weariness, unused to so much exercise, and persisted, and he said of himself, I am sorry, monseigneur, that you cannot see the smile that I wear for you, which has so shocked Widow Firmin. There is no sadness in it.

Myriel asked of him, Are we alone?

But for your sister, Madeleine returned, cautious.

And Myriel reached out, and traced his lips, and said, You have lied to me. There’s some sadness yet. It is very precious to me, to feel you, but where does this sorrow come from?

Madeleine kissed the fingertips offered to him, and did not answer, but directed their attention to some other matter, the school for the children of abandoned women, which had been Myriel’s first influence upon him, through the request of the friend in Étaples. He had detailed before by letter the story of a factory woman fallen far by his inattentiveness, his guilts moderated by Myriel’s response, and now said shyly that he would like to introduce them, Fantine being dear to him as a daughter might be, and her little girl—he spoke of the child with awe, like a mother with a newborn in her arms. An excellent distraction, for love finds joy in the loves of the one whom it adores.

Not until night fell, and Myriel had been given a bed all heaped with blankets and unwonted luxuries to which he submitted with fond grace, did the final banishment of doubt come. He said to the near-silent shadow: “I hear you, monsieur. A blind man’s ears ought to be pointed, to warn everyone of their sharpness.”

“The moon shone on you thus before,” Madeleine replied, in a rough Brie peasant’s tones, “but this is not how my body urged me to touch you, then.”

Myriel felt breath upon his forehead, and then the press of lips, soft and firm. Madeleine was not a man who hesitated, when he had finished with doubting.

Heat on his cheek, the words, “I still have your silver, monseigneur.” 

“Sit beside me, my heart,” replied Myriel, who understood at last which sin his lover feared, and that it was not he, and forgave him his hesitations, his imperfect understandings, his haltings—of course; for they were both of them men, no more, and no less.

“I feel I should kneel,” Jean Valjean replied, in a tone of confusion. “Once, I would have knelt.” Instead, he sat, and reached out his hand to rest over a heart that beat steady and sure and quickening. As we draw breath to speak of what followed, we hear in our ears, gentle, a voice behind which is the rustle of wings, hush, that bids us to silence.

[shsenhaji]

Les Misérables - 1.1.5: Que Monseigneur Bienvenu Faisait Durer Trop Longtemps Ses Soutanes

Much shorter chapter today than yesterday, but I'm not complaining. I rather enjoyed re-learning about Myriel's daily life, as well as all of his tasks and priorities. The tone is rather light and humorous, which works really well especially with what's still to come.

My main thought is that I'd forgotten the English translation of the chapter title, and I couldn't easily look up the word through my audiobook, so I was a bit confused at what a "soutanes" was in the first place... (I must add that I grew up as someone who figured out meaning usually through context clues, rather than hunting down the definition for specific words...)

I found it quite hilarious when I got my Les Mis Letters email and realized that a soutane was a cassock! I do think I like the French title better rather than this translation; the French title, as well as the text, has more of a sardonic and humorous vibe to it that the English doesn't quite have, at least to my mind.

Other parts I liked: The garden metaphor ("L’esprit est un jardin"), which I think sounds better in French. I don't think mind is a great translation of esprit in this case, but I'm not sure how I would translate it myself, so... As well, the fact that his household rejoices in having visitors so they can serve the good food, and that the town seems to be aware of that - I found that part very hilarious, albeit bittersweet.

I absolutely loved the note Myriel scribbled in the book and which our friend Victor Hugo so kindly transcribed for us. The last line especially hit me right in the feels: "mais Salomon vous nomme Miséricorde, et c’est le plus beau de tous vos noms." ("but Solomon calls you Compassion, and that is the most beautiful of all your names."

Finally, the last part of the chapter very much cracked me up. "Ici il est nécessaire que nous donnions une idée exacte du logis de M. l’évêque de Digne." Victor Hugo all but shouting that meme about this being a surprise tool that will help us later... I really do love how even Victor Hugo's tangents or random asides actually do matter to the text and the themes, and this case is a great example.

The foreshadowing is even more fun this time around, since I know exactly what will happen and why the reader having an exact idea of the dwelling of the Bishop of Digne is so important...

[salidadelmarisol]

rip monseigneur myriel you wouldve loved max goodwin